Also The Dog Ate My Homework

When it comes to excuses for not covering the Air America funding scandal in the pages of the Washington Post, first it was "we're looking into it" and today it's "less than a compelling story for us." An eagle-eyed reader alerted me to a live chat today with the Post's Paul Farhi:

Pentagon, Arlington, Va.: For those of us who prefer real reporting to blogs, could you please comment on the allegations surrounding Air America.

Paul Farhi: To summarize the allegations: One of the founders of AA allegedly "borrowed" start-up money from a charitable organization he was associated with. The current management of Air America says it had nothing to do with the alleged unauthorized diversion of funds. I don't really know what's what, but there does seem to be plenty of smoke here.

And later:

Arlington, Va.: I think the original question asking for real reporting on the Air America investigation was meant to be an ironic comment, given that the Post has not, in fact, reported on it. Any idea why it's getting the silent treatment?

Paul Farhi: Air America barely registered in the last ratings book here. It isn't locally based. I guess that combo makes it less than a compelling story for us.

Farhi is not an online-only columnist; he writes for the Style section as in today's blockbuster on a  puppet show on Court TV.

I'll have more on this in a moment.

UPDATE: There was one more exchange:

Alexandria, Va.: "Air America barely registered in the last ratings book here. It isn't locally based. I guess that combo makes it less than a compelling story for us." I guess that's why their lead personality was the subject of a long Post magazine story earlier this year.

Paul Farhi: Reasonable journalists can differ. I personally thought that was a dumb story. At the time, you couldn't even hear AA in Washington. Now you can, and almost everyone chooses not to.

More anon.

That does not mean "anonymously."

UPDATE: So my question is, were Air America's DC ratings significantly higher on June 13 when, as the image of search results shows, Howard Kurtz covered Air America in connection with an award given to Al Franken? Were they different when Kurtz wrote about Al Franken's reaction (among others) to the Iraqi vote on February 1, or when Marc Fisher wrote about the network in a Jan. 16 column (second panel)?

The search results generate 50 returns in the Washington Post (not post.com) back to Air America's inception, including a Sept. 12, 2004 Sunday Magazine feature on host Randi Rhodes. They also include a Sept. 16, 2004 story on the station returning to the air in Chicago--how is that compelling for Washington? (Those items are too far back under a "newest" search to be included in the first two pages reproduced here.)

Not all of these citations amount to much--it'd be silly to say the newspaper ran 50 stories about the network because they didn't. But even the briefs show some continuing interest in Air America that for double super secret reasons halted with the arrival of the scandal.